Fallout 3  Vault Emergence
by RemnantPsycho
Summary: A young vault-dweller steps outside Vault 101's premises and begins his adventure across the Wasteland...


101. Stepping outside, klaxons and smoke, a natural grey enveloping me as men my size uncharacteristically poised their 10mm pistols from behind me. One footstep and it seemed a world away.

The chains that had ruthlessly bound me to the underground dystopia all these years had almost collapsed and started to wither on the floor of the unlit tunnel, which ran from the Vault entrance to a rickety, forlorn door. As fast and hell bent as I had ran from the sirens that blared in the lower chambers of the only home I ever knew, I embraced the chance to cast the shackles of my youth aside, disregarding the condescending yells of the guards behind me as I turned and began to leave their world forever. Since the chaos had reared its beastly head in our otherwise peaceful, yet unbearably authoritarian, society, I had found myself in the middle ground between the realms. The rotten bones of skeletons on the floor, banners and signs strewn across their bodies in death, felt like purgatory. Soaking in the cold, untapped moisture gave me a strong sense of unease. But then again, so did the thought of going back.

'HELP US'

'WERE DYING, ASSHOLES'

'LET US IN MOTHERF**KERS'

The words of protest being held up by the long dead asylum seekers resonated through my head. Was the outside really this bad?

The dank rock beneath my feet echoing in the gloomy forgotten cavern was a sensation which sent shivers up my spine, looming like a precursor to the land ahead of me hardly influenced by the care and compassion of man, but instead the cruelty and rashness passed on from the men before them. The men whose authority were enough to bring the balance of the Earth's nuclear deterrence into frenzy and destruction, and rapidly transformed the ancient concept of nature which seems to have been so beautiful, into disarray which would test the men of the future to their limit and beyond. A land so plagued by the worst impurity of the human gene, that depraved isolation would occur to many as the utmost safety.

These speculations, I realised, were not my own. Spying the first faint bars of sunlight peeking through the grated wires in a wooden wall, the overseer's thoughts which had been planted in my brain since infancy, they eradicated, cleansed, themselves from my own, and I was filled with an overwhelming sense of optimism as I took further strides forward. Though I may have been about to walk into an environment where greed and fear would rule over the conscience of all who dared to dream, my expectations fed to me since childhood remained as my only cause for hesitation. I felt so alone and unguided, that much was true, but I finally had my freedom.

Choosing not to betray my own unfulfilled ignorance to the superstitions of others, it was finally the moment to break away.

I thought about Amata, who felt like a sister to me for my entire life under the earth. There, we grew under the same nourishing, tender hand, occasionally, among other things, sharing ideas of what the outside was really like. It almost became like an Afterlife for us – we didn't want to go just yet, but we'd have given anything to find out what it was like. But it seemed however impassioned we had allowed ourselves to become with these notions, we were always doomed to follow the example of those before us. The overseer, whose aim was to suppress the idea of venturing into the Wasteland in Vault 101, kept the vault-dwellers in line, with his own daughter, Amata, under his direct jurisdiction. But my dad…

My Dad. I glanced down. Although not visible, I could feel the presence of his footsteps traversing this narrow passage, fleeing in a way that I was up until this point emulating step for step. Retracing these in what seemed to be a desperate attempt at beginning a seemingly impossible quest, it was difficult to describe my real motivation for following him so unfettered.

Maybe it was because I craved to find his own reasons, and why he disappeared and left without so much as a farewell. Maybe, I was different to the others. Perhaps I had just had that taste for adventure, the instinct to cross what no citizen of 101 had crossed before, to nurture the thoughts which in so many heads had dissolved as mere fantasy.

But I knew deep down that I ran because I was petrified. Waking up to those obnoxious sirens, being told that I was a fugitive to the entire armed security force, being informed that Jonas had been murdered and that the overseer was to blame, and my very own father had provoked this irrational response. The enclosure which had been my home had never felt smaller and more hostile. Not in my wildest nightmares of the Wasteland had I encountered brutality so vivid and shocking. The choice between life and death of the man who passed down the protective lies through generations, the decision to show pity to Butch, the source of my torment growing up, and most dramatically, the choice that lead me to where I am standing now. It was obvious that the only way to escape from this misunderstanding was to leave and never return.

The huge, impenetrable seal covering the Vault entrance budged in a flurry of dust and grit, at the push of a button, beckoning me to explore. Whatever our intentions, it seems I am too merely a reflection of my father figure. Amata and I never decided our fates just as the lost souls of the Wasteland never decided theirs.

The shouts from security died down behind me and, as their efforts subsided, the huge metal bunker door wheeled back into place, blocking Washington DC from civilisation. After today's events, I wondered to what extent that place could now be called a civilisation, and whether in fact they were unknowingly blocking Vault 101 from the real civilisation. I had yet to find out for myself. The wheel slid perfectly into place, and in another rising cloud of ancient dust, I never saw it move again. This was it. I had forfeited my choice.

At last, my focus turned towards the foul panel of wood in front of me, so harrowed by age it was unbelievable. As I audaciously pulled down the stiff handle and ripped the door from its splintered frame, the trickles of light cascaded into a tidal wave of blinding sun, illuminating the mouth of the tunnel, and more importantly, illuminating me like a matchstick.

My skin itched and singed upon the sharp rays of the late morning. They forced themselves into and around my squinting eyes, and I could see nothing but a tear-jerking white haze surrounding me. My hand poised above my eye line, a picture soon emerged like it was rising to the surface of a murky lake. Shades of brown and cream eased across my vision and a vast expanse of desert stretched downhill and beyond. I relaxed, lowered my arm, and stepped out fully from the cave, drawing a desperate gasp from the thick air.

The land before me deviously sloped into a minefield of blunt rocks. In the midst of them were sand and grit as coarse as snakeskin, which joined up to form huge deserts spanning the breadth of the Capital Wasteland. Just below to piercing white sky sat lonesome jagged mountains, and further along lay the remnants of shabby housing, bricks scattered and framework crippled. Telephone poles and other worn structures jutted obliquely out of the desert floor as though they were plants, strewn carelessly like shrapnel.

Nothing else could grow. Waves of heat blurred and danced over the deathly scenery. Only piles of rubble and barely recognisable ruins, some being huge slender towers far behind the rocks on the horizon, existed as evidence of pre-existing intelligent life. For all I knew, whatever once lived here was swept up with the wind in a veil of gravel.

It smelt…stale. The bland stench of soil tainted by the bombing seemed to have lingered all these years. With the sun almost at the height of the day, it shone majestically but the air was dense as steel. The sweat clinging to me made my jumpsuit sticky and uncomfortable, and my Pip-Boy had formed red rings around my arm and wrist. I clutched the small device and sighed. My hair a mess and my life at a crossroads, it was time to take responsibility for my choice. I could never go back to the overseer. How could I explain my behaviour when I pointed a gun to his head and almost fired? How could I explain to Amata if we gathered time to talk afterwards? Would I ever see my Dad again?

Argh! Dad! I searched hopelessly for traces of footsteps, but just as I thought, they had been long gone. I was still adjusting to this terrain, like learning to walk again. Though I stumbled with all the grace of an infant, something about this seemed familiar.

The outside of Vault 101.

The tunnel from which I emerged was a crevice inside an ordinary crag. It was barely noticeable, blending seamlessly with the setting, or simply abandoned and left to rot. From what I learnt, nearly all the Vaults were tucked away like this, although time may have changed just how discreet it had become. It then made me wonder if there were people still unwittingly being oppressed in other Vaults underneath the barren wasteland, and if perhaps there were others that…weren't so lucky when the bombs dropped. Perhaps there was equal subjugation being carried out here in the wastes. What governed this land? A dictatorship? A parliament? Surely nothing worse than the overseer's crude leadership. And yet…my mind wiped. I'd forgotten what I was thinking about to start with.

Not dwelling on it, I took a downwards path and headed straight to a vague marker which appeared on my electronic map.

Megaton, it read. Perhaps someone there could answer my questions.

_And so began the journey of the Lone Wanderer._


End file.
